Rooftop Phone booth

As you drive through the downtown area of Lincoln, Illinois, everything looks normal. Until you look ontop of the city hall/fire department. Located 3 stories above on the edge of the roof is a phone booth.

The phone booth was placed up there back in the 1950’s as a “watch tower” for bad weather. In the years before the weather radar, the youngest, unmarried firefighter was send up to the roof to stand guard and watch for tornado activity. When, and if anything potentially dangerous was spotted, he would pick up the phone, call down to the day room and they would sound the tornado siren. This practice continued until the late 70’s, early 80’s when weather radar was better developed. The fire department and the town both decided to leave the booth in its place.